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Questions tagged [terminology]

Questions about the meaning or usage of programming terms.

From computing.surrey.ac.uk

Three major points:

  1. Firstly, proper terminology is concerned with the relationship between concepts, and between them and their designations, rather than with designations alone or with the objects they represent. This point is essential if quality is to be achieved, especially with synonyms and in multilingual environments.
  2. Secondly, a designation does not necessarily have to be a word or phrase, although it often is. Thus terminological resources may comprise symbols, drawings, formulae, codes, etc. as well as, or even instead of, words. This point is especially important given the move to multimedia systems.
  3. Thirdly, terminology is inextricably linked with specialist knowledge and hence with special languages or languages for special purposes (LSPs).
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What is the difference between a shim and a polyfill?

Both seem to be used in web development circles, see e.g. HTML5 Cross Browser Polyfills, which says: So here we're collecting all the shims, fallbacks, and polyfills... Or, there's the es5-shim project. In my current project we're using a number…
Domenic
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What is the difference between task and thread?

In C# 4.0, we have Task in the System.Threading.Tasks namespace. What is the true difference between Thread and Task. I did some sample program(help taken from MSDN) for my own sake of learning with Parallel.Invoke Parallel.For Parallel.ForEach…
user372724
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Difference between 'cls' and 'self' in Python classes?

Why is cls sometimes used instead of self as an argument in Python classes? For example: class Person: def __init__(self, firstname, lastname): self.firstname = firstname self.lastname = lastname @classmethod def…
Scaraffe
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What is the difference between tree depth and height?

This is a simple question from algorithms theory. The difference between them is that in one case you count number of nodes and in other number of edges on the shortest path between root and concrete node. Which is which?
Gabriel Ščerbák
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How to explain callbacks in plain english? How are they different from calling one function from another function?

How to explain callbacks in plain English? How are they different from calling one function from another function taking some context from the calling function? How can their power be explained to a novice programmer?
Yahoo-Me
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What does '# noqa' mean in Python comments?

While searching through a Python project, I found a few lines commented with # noqa. import sys sys.path.append(r'C:\dev') import some_module # noqa What does noqa mean in Python? Is it specific to Python only?
Ishpreet
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What does Bump Version stand for?

I saw this comment in git many times. What does it mean actually?
user80805
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Static/Dynamic vs Strong/Weak

What is the difference between Static/Dynamic and Strong/Weak typing?
Daniel Revell
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What does "opt" mean (as in the "opt" directory)? Is it an abbreviation?

What does "opt" mean (as in the "opt" directory)? I commonly see this directory in Unix systems with development tools inside. Is it an abbreviation?
John Assymptoth
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What is the difference between memoization and dynamic programming?

What is the difference between memoization and dynamic programming? I think dynamic programming is a subset of memoization. Is it right?
Sanghyun Lee
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UI Terminology: Logon vs Login

I am crafting an application and cannot decide whether to use the terms Login/out or Logon/off. Is there a more correct option between these two? Should I use something else entirely (like "Sign on/off"). In terms of usability, as long as I am…
Brad Leach
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What is a practical use for a closure in JavaScript?

I'm trying my hardest to wrap my head around JavaScript closures. I get that by returning an inner function, it will have access to any variable defined in its immediate parent. Where would this be useful to me? Perhaps I haven't quite got my head…
alex
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What is Type-safe?

What does "type-safe" mean?
Razin
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In Docker, what's the difference between a container and an image?

What's the difference between a container and an image in Docker? In the Get started with Docker tutorial these terms are both used, but I do not understand the difference. Can anybody please shed some light?
Golo Roden
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What is a web service endpoint?

Let's say my web service is located at http://localhost:8080/foo/mywebservice and my WSDL is at http://localhost:8080/foo/mywebservice?wsdl. Is http://localhost:8080/foo/mywebservice an endpoint, i.e., is it the same as the URI of my web service or…
karakays
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